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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, I am obliged to the Minister for his reply. For reasons beyond the control of both of us, this amendment was not discussed in Committee, so before we conclude this debate I would like to ask him one or two more questions. However, I shall first comment on his contribution. It was extremely full and he obviously took a great deal of trouble over it. I thank him for that. I was a bit puzzled by the Minister’s remark about the European Court of Justice and the uncertainty that a court might experience when making a decision in the context of my amendment. Whether a directive is implemented in terms or elaborated by the national legislature, an English court is in entirely the same position in relation to a matter of interpretation. Even if a directive has been implemented in national law, the ultimate arbiter of what that law means will be the European Court of Justice. Since we have been a member of the Community, there have been countless occasions when a matter at issue in a dispute over a British statute that derives from a Community directive has been referred by the British court to the ECJ. Therefore, in my respectful submission, the distinction that the Minister makes in that part of his argument is a distinction without a difference. One of the illustrations to which the Minister drew your Lordships’ attention was social legislation. However, it has always been accepted in the social sector in the Community that a directive provides a minimum series of social standards, not an exclusive series. At no stage has there been an obligation on the UK Government to accept the minimum necessary, and I do not see my amendment covering circumstances such as that. The one reassuring point that the Minister makes—and this is the one point that gives me pause for thought about the absolutism of my amendment—was his reference to what I think is called the Cabinet Office transposition guide. The noble Lord nods his head. I am not sure whether it is because of my own negligence or the fact that this document is not easily available that I have not seen it; it is probably the former. But I was very interested to hear what the Minister said about it because it suggests that if what is contained in the transposition document is widely applied by departments, then gold-plating ought not to be a problem. These are very strict requirements in the document. Can the Minister tell us a bit more about the document, its degree of transparency, the frequency of its updating and, above all, the authority it carries with Secretaries of State and, in particular, Permanent Secretaries in departments? How thoroughly are regulations supervised by Permanent Secretaries to ensure that the Cabinet document to which the Minister referred is actually complied with? The way he described the document suggests that it ought to be extremely difficult to gold-plate any Community directive. The Minister may feel that at this stage he cannot answer these questions—I do not know. I apologise to him for putting him to the trouble of having to stand up another time. When I drafted the amendment I had not really addressed this area, so this is a genuine inquiry.